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Character Design
What Makes a Good Character Design? Good character designs are difficult to explain in just a few short sentences, but there are eight rules to keep in mind that will prevent characters like Sothis here from coming into existence. Rule 1: Keep It Simple The easiest mistake to make involves making a character design too overly complicated. Characters need to have a certain number of details depending on the medium they appear in. 2D animation needs the simplest designs because they are being drawn constantly. Comics can have slightly more complicated designs because theyare not drawn as often. 3D animation has to create a model first, but the design also has to be drawn often in many forms before it gets created. Live-action can have anything a costume designer or animatronic engineer can make. Finally novels can have potentially limitless details, but the limitations of text tend to keep the designs simple. These are the amount of details possible in these mediums however. There needs to be as much of an emphasis as possible on removing pointless details, and keeping the design as simplistic as possible. Every details should have an inherit purpose. Whether this indicates something a character has, or something that clues you into a character's personality is up to the interpretation of the creator. This is a list of details that are often added unnecessarily, and these are common in awful character designs. * Stripes are overly complicated, and picking a solid color will almost always benefit the design * Checkered designs are far too complicated, and difficult to keep consistent * Polka dots are often too difficult to draw for similar reasons * Overly complicated shapes or symbols are difficult to draw consistently * Asymmetrical designs are often difficult to keep track of, and they can easily lead to animation errors. However, these tend to be more justifiable, but only if the inherit risk of mistakes is known * Belts are often overused on characters, and they add nothing to the character design * Placing tons of weapons on a character can make the design look overly bulky * Tally marks are an obnoxious detail that should only be used briefly if at all * Pouches are often overused, and are something that should only be drawn up close if they are used at all * Adding copious amounts of lines or moving parts on machines or armor is extremely common * Freckles are similar to polka dots in the sense that they are difficult to keep consistent * Gaps in teeth are unnecessary, and they add more work to characters that don't need it * Adding wholes in clothing can result in difficult animation in many cases Each of these could be implemented in a reasonable way, but only with extremely careful consideration of the significance each detail possesses. There is also the issue of general detail. This includes shading, texture, and style to a certain extent. The anime style is notorious for being to complicated on a basic level. The artstyle is too complicated, and this leads to corners being cut significantly in order to make these series looking even slightly appealing. Rule 2: Using Color Effectively Color is incredibly important in character design.